WERD (historic radio station)

WERD was the first radio station owned and programmed by African Americans. The station was established in Atlanta, Georgia on October 3, 1949, broadcasting on 860 AM (now used by WAEC).

WERD Atlanta was the first radio station owned and operated by African-Americans. (WDIA in Memphis was on the air in 1948 doing black—or Negro as it was then called—programming, but the owners were not African American). Jesse B. Blayton Sr., an accountant, bank president, and Atlanta University professor, purchased WERD in 1949 for $50,000. He changed the station format to "black appeal" and hired his son Jesse Jr. as station manager.[1] "Jockey" Jack Gibson was hired and by 1951 he was the most popular DJ in Atlanta.

The station was housed in the Prince Hall Masonic Temple building on Auburn Avenue,[2] then one of the wealthiest black neighborhoods in the United States. Located in that same building was the headquarters of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, formed in 1957, led by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and staffed by Ella Baker.[3][4] According to Gibson, King would tap the ceiling of SCLC office [just below WERD] with a broomstick to signal he had an announcement to make. Gibson would then lower a microphone from the studio window to King at the window below.[5]

WDIA, in Memphis, Tennessee, though white owned, had Nat D. Williams as part of the first radio station programmed entirely for African Americans, WERD had "Jockey Jack" Gibson, a friend of Blayton from Chicago.[6] Blayton sold the station in 1968.[7]

References

  1. ↑ "Blayton, Jesse B., Sr. (1879-1977)". BlackPast.org. Retrieved 2012-11-02.
  2. ↑ http://sweetauburn.us/princehall.htm
  3. ↑ "Jesse B. Blayton, Sr.". Radio Hall of Fame. Retrieved 2012-11-02.
  4. ↑ Garrow, David (1986). Bearing the Cross. Morrow.
  5. ↑ Barlow, William (1999). Voice Over: The Making of Black Radio. Temple University Press. p. 208-9. ISBN 9781566396677.
  6. ↑ Tom Opdyke, "Retro Scope - Life As It Used to Be - WERD Is a Word in Black History," The Atlanta Constitution, October 31, 1994.
  7. ↑ "Jesse B. Blayton Jr., Headed Radio Station WERD for 20 Years," The Atlanta Constitution, November 8, 1986.


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